


Yours in Fraternity

by yet_intrepid



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Gen, Historical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 22:51:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/715984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the 1831 Canut Revolts in Lyons, Feuilly receives a letter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yours in Fraternity

“M’sieu Feuilly!” yelled his landlady. “You’ve a letter!”

He paused with his foot on the first stair. He’d heard the same call sent at other lodgers, but it had never been for him—who was there to send him letters? But when he went to pick it up and reimburse the landlady for the postage, he recognized the handwriting.

Enjolras. Enjolras, who was currently in Lyon. But what could he have to say to Feuilly specifically? He’d have expected any letters to go to Combeferre, with relevant bits to be shared at meetings.

Feuilly climbed up five flights of stairs and let himself into his flat, settling on the edge of the bed as he unfolded the paper which bore his name and address. Several newspaper clippings fell out, but he turned his attention to the letter itself first.

“Citizen Feuilly:

I doubt the newspapers in Paris are eager to spread the word, but revolt is stirring among the working class here in Lyon. The silk workers are on the verge of strike because their salaries have fallen drastically and the manufacturers refuse to guarantee them a minimum wage as they did before the Restoration. I have enclosed some newspaper articles detailing the state of affairs, but wish to supplement them by saying that I visited one of the silk workshops myself and found the conditions absolutely inhumane. A steady and sufficient wage, when achieved for these workers, will be only a fragment of justice. Men, women, and children work fourteen to eighteen hour days in airless rooms, at all temperatures, breathing the dust of the silk and the machinery. I cannot yet manage to set down on paper everything I have heard and seen, for I wish to send this quickly, but Feuilly, please raise awareness and sympathy for these men in their fight. The Parisians must stand with them, that we may send a message to those who oppress their fellow man through industry: no more.

I would appreciate it if you were to pass this information on to the others, that they also might do what they can. Perhaps a pamphlet.

Yours in fraternity,

Citizen Enjolras.”

Feuilly sat staring at the letter for several minutes. After he had sorted through his anger at how desperately familiar the working conditions in the silk industry sounded (he had never worked an eighteen-hour day himself, but he had done fifteen or sixteen, and knew men who had done eighteen) and formulated his initial thoughts on what could be done to join the Parisians with the Lyonnais, he smiled to himself.

The letter contained group news, but Enjolras hadn’t sent it to Combeferre. He had sent it to Feuilly. Because he knew how much Feuilly would care.

Kicking off his shoes and lighting a candle so that his eyes wouldn’t have to strain so much in the gathering dusk, Feuilly began to pore over the newspaper articles.


End file.
